If your roofline is showing paint flaking, damp patches or sagging gutters, Ely Roofers can inspect and replace fascias, soffits and guttering for homes in Burwell before the damage spreads.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
Fascias, soffits and guttering sit at the junction between your roof and the top of your walls. They do three jobs at once: they carry the gutters that drain rainwater away from your foundations, they seal the gap at the foot of the roof so birds, insects and damp air cannot get into the roof space, and they protect the ends of the roof timbers from direct weather. When any one of those three functions fails, water finds a way in and timber starts to rot.
The problem is that this part of the house is easy to ignore. It is above eye level, and the early signs of trouble are subtle. By the time most homeowners notice something is badly wrong, the damage has often spread from the visible boards into the rafter feet or the wall plate beneath the tiles. Catching problems early is far cheaper than dealing with the consequences.
You do not need to get on a ladder to spot most early warning signs. Stand back from your house and look carefully at the roofline. A few things to check:
The most common cause on timber boards is simply age combined with poor maintenance. Paint is the only thing standing between a timber fascia and the weather. Once the paint film breaks down and water gets into end grain or joints, the wood swells and shrinks with each wet-dry cycle. Over several winters, the fibres of the wood separate and it becomes soft and spongy. Frost accelerates this: water that has soaked into the wood expands when it freezes, opening up cracks that let in more water next time.
Blocked gutters make the problem much worse. Leaves, moss washed from roof tiles and general debris build up in gutters until water cannot get to the downpipe. It sits in the gutter, eventually overflows, and runs behind the fascia.
On uPVC rooflines, the materials themselves last much longer, but fixings and joints are the weak point. Screws corrode, brackets crack under UV exposure, and the rubber or mastic seals at gutter unions harden and pull away. A uPVC gutter that is leaking at a joint is often leaking directly onto the fascia board behind it, and because uPVC does not show the same visible rot as timber, the damage can go unnoticed for longer.
Another cause worth mentioning is inadequate ventilation in the roof void. Soffits on modern and refurbished roofs should include ventilation strips or perforated panels so that moist air can escape from the loft. When solid soffits are fitted without ventilation, or when ventilation strips get blocked with debris or paint, condensation builds up in the loft space. This condenses on the cold timbers and can cause rot from the inside without any visible external leak at all.
A rotten fascia board is a straightforward repair. A rotten fascia board that has been left for two or three more winters starts to take the rafter feet with it. The foot of a rafter sits on the wall plate and the end of it is directly behind the fascia. Once moisture travels that far, you are looking at a structural repair rather than a roofline job. The cost difference is significant - a full fascia and soffit replacement on a semi-detached house typically runs between £1,200 and £2,500 depending on size and access, while structural timber repairs on top of that can add hundreds more per elevation.
Blocked or leaking gutters left over winter can also cause damp to appear on internal walls at ceiling level, which homeowners sometimes mistake for a roof leak. The water is not coming through the tiles - it is running down behind the fascia and soaking into the top of the masonry.
We work from scaffold or secured ladders. Safe access is not optional at roofline height, and any roofer offering to do this work from a single unsecured ladder should be treated with caution.
The job starts by removing the existing gutters, then lifting the lowest course of tiles or stripping back the felt edge to expose the full fascia board. The old fascia and soffit are taken off and the rafter feet inspected. If any timber is soft, it is cut back to sound wood and a new section spliced in before the new boards go on. Skipping that step and boarding over rotten timber is a false economy - the rot continues beneath the new cladding.
New boards are fixed, the soffit is fitted with ventilation where required, and the guttering is rehung on new brackets at the correct fall - typically around 1:350, which means a drop of roughly 3 mm for every metre of run. The fall must be consistent; a gutter that looks level to the eye is often running slightly the wrong way.
If you have noticed any of the warning signs above, call us to arrange a roofline inspection so you know exactly what you are dealing with before committing to any work.
Most replacement work today uses uPVC. It does not rot, it needs no painting, and modern profiles are available in a wide range of colours and finishes including woodgrain effects. Ogee-profile guttering and a range of fascia widths mean it is possible to match most existing rooflines closely. Timber is still used where appearance or planning requirements demand it, but it requires ongoing maintenance. We cover materials and honest pros and cons in more detail on our Haddenham page if you want to read further.
These are basic questions, and any roofer confident in their work will answer them without hesitation. If the answers are vague, that tells you something.
If you have spotted any of the warning signs described above - peeling paint, sagging gutters, staining on the wall or visible gaps at the soffit - call Ely Roofers to arrange a roofline inspection. We cover Burwell and the surrounding area including Soham, Reach, Downham, Littleport and Ely itself. The sooner a problem is identified, the less it costs to put right.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
